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“Wait a minute. We’ve gotta find my mother. I’m not leaving without her,” Sam said. “Marlowe’s keeping her here. He’s using her power to balance the energy of the Eye. He’s hurting her.”
A wave of hatred rose up in Evie. Ten years. Ten years Marlowe’s machine had kept her brother in a state of suffering. “Where is the Eye?”
“On the roof. The solarium.”
Evie remembered the button in the elevator marked S. It was that easy, then. A quick trip up and she’d end her brother’s misery for good. The breach would close. The King of Crows would hold no more power. It would all be over. That she would be the one to smash Jake Marlowe’s precious invention was the icing on the cake.
“Marlowe’s been making some changes to it,” Sam said. “It’s much more powerful than before.”
“I’m sorry, Sam, but the Shadow Men took your mother in their car,” Theta said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But she told us to find you and go.”
“I want to see it,” Evie said, jumping to her feet. “I want to see the machine that’s trapped my brother. And then I want to destroy it.”
“Baby Vamp, you can’t,” Sam said quietly.
“I can’t what?” Evie challenged. If it was the last thing she did, she would destroy that terrible machine.
“Destroy it,” Sam said.
“Sure I can. A hammer. A screwdriver. Anything will do,” Evie insisted.
“I’m telling you, I know. I’ve been hooked up to it. It’s… it’s beyond our comprehension, connected to that other world, and more worlds besides. We don’t know how that machine works. We don’t know what happens to your brother and all those soldiers if you break it. For all we know, it could trap them in that same loop forever.”
Evie wanted to scream. “Are you telling me I’ve made it this far, all the way to Marlowe’s house, and I can’t even help my brother?”
“I’m sorry, Baby Vamp.”
“Why can’t just one thing be simple?” Evie said, pressing the backs of her hands to her eyes, which were threatening to erupt again.
“Hey, Evil? We’d better blouse. Those Shadow Men or a creepy butler could find us, and then we’re really stuck,” Theta said.
“I’m sorry, Baby Vamp.” Sam laced his fingers with hers. “I promise we’ll figure it out. We’ll save your brother and my ma.”
Evie nodded. They’d found Sam. It wasn’t nothing.
“Alley-oop,” she said. Evie and Theta helped Sam to his feet. Isaiah opened the door.
“Hey. You folks are really top drawer. Thanks for coming to my rescue,” Sam said. “Honestly? I wouldn’t want anybody else to do it.”
“Swell. We’ll send the bill later,” Theta said.
On their way out, Evie stopped at Marlowe’s desk. “Is this where he sits to make all of his terrible decisions?” Evie asked. She let her hand hover above the carefully curated objects there, all of them expensive, she knew. None of them imbued with real meaning.
“Don’t do it. You don’t want that man’s memories in your head,” Sam warned.
Evie took Sam’s point. She put on her gloves to block sensation, and then she sat in Marlowe’s antique wingback chair and scratched out a note. “Dear Mr. Marlowe, What you are doing will have devastating”—Evie sounded the word out, making sure she’d gotten all the letters right—“consequences for the nation. Diviners are your only chance of stopping the Army of the Dead and the King of Crows before it’s too late. Sincerely…”
Theta read over her shoulder. “‘A concerned citizen’? Evil. He will know you wrote that letter.”
“I don’t mind if he does,” Evie said with a toss of her head. “If he wants to hunt us down, kidnap us off the streets, and feed us to his machine, I want him to know that I was in his house. That I touched all of his precious things with my awful Diviner powers.” Evie wiggled her fingers like a jazz baby. She eyed the pen once more, then put it in her pocket.
“That’s stealing,” Isaiah said.
Evie patted her pocket. “So it is.”
